I'm trying to get to a point where I tell people, if you want to get in touch with me, please don't rely on email. I don't want to be a slave to it.

As a kid I had gone to New York a handful of times with my family. I definitely think it planted a seed in me.

I like the idea that a song can be about a romantic relationship, but it can also about a relationship to your career, or a relationship to your city.

Throughout college I was getting better and better at making recordings, producing songs, making different kinds of beats.

I made a quote-unquote 'album' for my senior project of high school. As soon as I finished making it I realized it wasn't the kind of music I wanted to make.

My parents left Iran in 1979 and moved to France and then moved to the U.S. My brother was born in France and I was born in New York, and then we moved to D.C.

The most exciting songs to me are the unlikely hits, when you think, 'I love this, but why is it on the radio?'

I certainly think that my music is a response to my experience as a person who doesn't identify as straight, as a person who grew up American.

Because of who I am, and how open I am, there's something inherently political about just writing love songs.

My music is about identity.

I think that's kind of the perfect mix, where you do something that you're not sure about, you feel like you're taking a risk, and then you turn around and look at the artists that you're collaborating with and you can read the expression on their face if they like it or they hate it.

I think as a producer, you're always sort of questioning if what you're contributing is something that an artist loves and elevates a song.

Even though I've been making electronic music since I was 14, it's hard for people to see you as a producer with a musical identity when you're contextualized in a band that performs on a stage.

I admire Brian Eno so much in how he seems to push the idea of less being more - his touch is to crack open a window and let the light in.

I want to live in a world that is less white supremacist, straight supremacist, male supremacist.

I think the music that speaks to me the most is music that is personal. And that's the music that I'm trying to make.

I like that I can write my name in Persian, and it's a small unit, like a graphical unit. I feel the same way about my name in English, it's a graphical unit.

It's hard to make music that's sexy that's not cheesy.

When I moved to New York, I remember thinking, 'I'm never going to live anywhere else.'

I don't identify as white. I have a complex relationship with whiteness.

Whatever you are making, whether it's a song, an album, a painting, a film, you're connecting with a tradition, and I do feel connected to New York music.

I can't even begin to express the joy I get from writing songs, both on my own and with others, I hold it all sacred.

I'd like to release solo songs on a regular basis, but it's pretty difficult for me to finish them.

I was listening 'Plastic Ono Band,' the John Lennon album a lot, and that might have had some inspiration on me.